There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Lighting accounts for one-fifth of global electricity consumption1. Single materials with efficient and stable white-light emission are ideal for lighting applications, but photon emission covering the entire visible spectrum is difficult to achieve using a single material. Metal halide perovskites have outstanding emission properties2,3; however, the best-performing materials of this type contain lead and have unsatisfactory stability. Here we report a lead-free double perovskite that exhibits efficient and stable white-light emission via self-trapped excitons that originate from the Jahn–Teller distortion of the AgCl6 octahedron in the excited state. By alloying sodium cations into Cs2AgInCl6, we break the dark transition (the inversion-symmetry-induced parity-forbidden transition) by manipulating the parity of the wavefunction of the self-trapped exciton and reduce the electronic dimensionality of the semiconductor4. This leads to an increase in photoluminescence efficiency by three orders of magnitude compared to pure Cs2AgInCl6. The optimally alloyed Cs2(Ag0.60Na0.40)InCl6 with 0.04 per cent bismuth doping emits warm-white light with 86 ± 5 per cent quantum efficiency and works for over 1,000 hours. We anticipate that these results will stimulate research on single-emitter-based white-light-emitting phosphors and diodes for next-generation lighting and display technologies. After alloying with metal cations, a lead-free halide double perovskite shows stable performance and remarkably efficient white-light emission, with possible applications in lighting and display technologies.

Efficient and stable emission of warm-white light from lead-free halide double perovskites

Methylammonium Chloride Induces Intermediate Phase Stabilization for Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells

It is conventionally assumed that the growth of monodisperse colloidal nanocrystals requires a temporally discrete nucleation followed by monomer attachment onto the existing nuclei. However, recent studies have reported violations of this classical growth model, and have suggested that inter-particle interactions are also involved during the growth. Mechanisms of nanocrystal growth still remain controversial. Using in situ transmission electron microscopy, we show that platinum nanocrystals can grow either by monomer attachment from solution onto the existing particles or by coalescence between the particles. Surprisingly, an initially broad size distribution of the nanocrystals can spontaneously narrow. We suggest that nanocrystals take different pathways of growth based on their size- and morphology-dependent internal energies. These observations are expected to be highly relevant for other nanocrystal systems.

Observation of Single Colloidal Platinum Nanocrystal Growth Trajectories

Graphene-polymer nanocomposites for structural and functional applications

Facile one-pot synthesis of MoS2 quantum dots–graphene–TiO2 composites for highly enhanced photocatalytic properties

Multiple-cation lead mixed-halide perovskites (MLMPs) have been recognized as ideal candidates in perovskite solar cells in terms of high efficiency and stability due to decreased open-circuit voltage loss and suppressed yellow phase formation. However, they still suffer from an unsatisfactory long-term moisture stability. In this study, phosphorus-containing Lewis acid and base molecules are employed to improve device efficiency and stability based on their multifunction including recombination reduction, phase segregation suppression, and moisture resistance. The strong fluorine-containing Lewis acid treatment can achieve a champion PCE of 22.02%. Unencapsulated and encapsulated devices retain 63% and 80% of the initial efficiency after 14 days of aging under 75% and 85% relative humidity, respectively. The better passivation of Lewis acid implies more halide defects than Pb defects at the MLMP surface. This unbalanced defect type results from phase segregation that is the synergistic effect of Cs and halide ion migrations. Identifying defect type based on different passivation effects is beneficial to not only choose suitable passivators to boost the efficiency and slow down the moisture degradation of MLMP solar cells, but also to understand the mechanism of defect-assisted moisture degradation.

Multifunctional Phosphorus-Containing Lewis Acid and Base Passivation Enabling Efficient and Moisture-Stable Perovskite Solar Cells

Very recently, all-inorganic perovskite CsPbX3 (X = Cl, Br, I) nanostructures such as nanoparticles, nanoplates, and nanorods have been extensively explored. These CsPbX3 nanostructures exhibit excellent optical properties; however, the photophysics involved is not yet clear. Herein, the emission properties and luminescence mechanism of CsPbBr3 nanosheets (NSs) were investigated using steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopic techniques. Moreover, two kinds of excitonic emissions (Peak 1 and Peak 2) are observed at low temperatures (<80 K) under the conditions of low excitation level. They are revealed to stem from the radiative recombination of trapped and free excitons by examining their spectral features and emission intensity dependences on excitation power. Thermally induced exchange between the two kinds of excitons is found and modeled quantitatively; this has led to the determination of an activation energy of 13 meV. Thermal redistribution of trapped excitons and thermal expansion-induced blueshift of the bandgap are jointly responsible for the abnormal temperature dependence of the position of Peak 1, whereas the latter is predominant for the monotonic blueshift of the position of Peak 2 with an increase in temperature. These results and findings shed some light on the complicated luminescence mechanism of CsPbBr3 NSs.

Luminescence and thermal behaviors of free and trapped excitons in cesium lead halide perovskite nanosheets

In this paper, we reported a simple one-pot solvothermal approach to fabricate Ag/reduced graphene oxide (r-GO)/TiO2 composite photocatalyst under atmospheric pressure. Based on the experimental data, we concluded that the introduction of Ag into classical graphene–TiO2 system (i) efficiently enlarges the absorption range, (ii) improves photogenerated electron separation and (iii) increases photocatalysis reaction sites. The optimized sample exhibits prominent photocatalysis ability as compared to pure TiO2 under simulated sunlight. We further proposed that besides the above three advantages of Ag, a different size of Ag nanoparticles is also responsible for the improved photocatalysis ability, where small size Ag nanoparticles (2–5 nm) could store a photoexcited electron that was generated from TiO2, while large-size Ag nanoparticles could utilize visible light due to their localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) absorption. Our present work gives new insights into the photocatalysis mechanism of noble metal/r-GO/TiO2 composites and provides a new pathway into the design of TiO2-based photocatalysts and promote their practical application in various environmental and energy issues.

Minqiang Wang

Papers

Facile one-pot synthesis of MoS2 quantum dots–graphene–TiO2 composites for highly enhanced photocatalytic properties

Multifunctional Phosphorus-Containing Lewis Acid and Base Passivation Enabling Efficient and Moisture-Stable Perovskite Solar Cells

Luminescence and thermal behaviors of free and trapped excitons in cesium lead halide perovskite nanosheets

One-pot synthesis of Ag/r-GO/TiO2 nanocomposites with high solar absorption and enhanced anti-recombination in photocatalytic applications

Engineering the Exciton Dissociation in Quantum‐Confined 2D CsPbBr3 Nanosheet Films